Tag Archives: Girona

Life is a gift from the few to the many, from those who know and have to those who do not know and have not.

Amadeo Modigliani

Away from the ever-reaching tendrils of the past I got back to work in the neutral energy of London and my life was practical and structured and suited me. I phoned and asked Dr Arnau, if Girona was the lock, what then was the key? He told me to draw the circles overlapping the Cradle site and draw a line from Girona to Rennes with Canigou in the mid point as I had with The Portal: Rennes, Girona, two towers, two alterpieces. ‘You have already been told the journey is made up of circles. Work out and draw the lock then the key and send it to me.

(chapter 36).

Anchored in the Catalan City of Girona, and in a somewhat similar spirit to that of her previous books The City of Secrets and The Portal, authoress and playwright, Patrice Chaplin, continues her elongated quest to fully embrace the so-called Hidden Society of said city. Something which has genuinely been preserved since antiquity and has captured the hearts and minds of such influential, illustrious figures as Salvador Dali, Jean Cocteau, Otto Rahn and, would you believe, Howard Hughes no less.

Written in a friendly and almost conversational manner, the 235 pages of The Stone Cradle – One Woman’s Search for the Truth beyond Everyday Realitytraverse the fascination with which Chaplin clearly holds Girona. A city she describes as: ”a portal, a gap in the planet’s atmosphere leading to other places and other times. A private society has held this secret for centuries. It’s power in the wrong hands would bring untold darkness”

Hmm, a most succinct description that may go some way into partially explaining the book’s Dramatis Personae which not only include the aforementioned Cocteau, Hughes and Dali, but an array of others – Charlemagne among them…

Didactic and different, overtly enthusiastic and quite possibly (a little) eccentric, The Stone Cradle is rather recondite to the point that it might not actually be for everyone. But it does nevertheless, make one think.